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Oak Harbor therapist arrested

"Whidbey Island mental health counselor Glenn Jolley was arrested by Oak Harbor police Monday on suspicion that he sexually molested a patient during a counseling session.Over the last nine years, seven other women and girls have accused Jolley, who has offices in both Oak Harbor and Freeland, of sexual misconduct ranging from harassing telephone calls to rape. The Washington State Department of Health is also currently investigating Jolley.Jolley appeared in Island County Superior Court Tuesday afternoon for his preliminary hearing. He was released on the condition that he not have one-on-one counseling with female patients. He was arrested on suspicion of indecent liberties. Prosecutors have 72 hours to decide whether or not to charge him. The indecent liberties charge covers any case in which a health care professional has sexual contact with a patient without the patient's consent.According to the certification of probable cause, 59-year-old Jolley is accused of fondling his 41-year-old patient's breasts and other body parts during a counseling session Jan. 16 at the counselor's Cabot Drive office.In a phone interview Tuesday, Jolley denied the recent allegation. The accusation, he said, comes from a disgruntled patient, and is going to be very tough for his family and children to handle.When asked about the history of women making accusations against him, Jolley said: We're talking about an 11 year period. They all had their points of view and they were all dealt with on some level.His attorney, Christopher Skinner, said Jolley denies all allegations that have been made against him by the complainant who apparently contacted the police.Oak Harbor Police Sgt. Jerry Baker said he and Detective Teri Gardner - who led the investigation - took the allegations against Jolley very seriously after they started hearing variations on the same story from different people who don't know each other and live in different locations.Baker said he's pretty sure that there are other possible victims out there. The story is far from finished, Baker said. There's a lot more to find out there.The counselor's section of the state Department of Health investigated Jolley and took corrective action against him in 1995 after receiving complaints from three of his former patients. The department is currently investigating two sexual-related complaints against him.Four women have filed lawsuits against Jolley claiming malpractice and professional negligence. He settled two of the lawsuits; the other two have been filed in just the last month.The most serious allegation against Jolley comes from a woman named Melissa Sears. She claims that in 1994, when she was 15 years old, she saw Jolley for counseling. He offered her a ride home, drove her to a secluded place and raped her, according to a civil complaint for damages Sears filed with Island County Jan. 25.At the risk of stating the obvious, I believe that Mr. Jolley is a continuing threat to women, of all ages, who find themselves in a position where they must trust him, Seattle Attorney David Summers wrote last October in a letter to Island County Prosecutor Greg Banks, urging him to reopen the investigation into Sears' allegations against Jolley. The alleged rape was investigated by the Sheriff's Department, but the former county prosecutor chose not to bring charges against Jolley.In my opinion (Jolley) will re-offend, and sooner or later his history will come out, Summers continued. When it does, people may ask whether those who could have stopped him earlier did all they could.Summers has represented all four women who have independently filed lawsuits against Jolley.After the first lawsuit was filed against Jolley in 1991, he admitted in a deposition that he molested an 18-year-old patient named Ngaire Hyde by pulling her on his lap, sexually fondling and kissing her after sharing wine with her during a counseling session. He said that he had been drinking heavily for days before the incident and didn't remember some of it. He also admitted that he initially lied about the incident and tried to discredit Hyde.Jolley did express regret.I made advances towards Ngaire that were inappropriate to that setting, Jolley said in the March, 1993, deposition. I took advantage of her vulnerabilities. I positioned myself in a way that compromised her trust in me, her trust in therapy. Island County resident Teresa Lombard claims that Jolley made unwanted sexual advances toward her and touched her inappropriately after he was appointed as guardian ad litem in her divorce proceedings. She has filed a lawsuit against him.According to Baker, Jolley was removed from the county's guardian ad litem program about six months ago after Lombard and another person complained about his conduct.With all the allegations made against Jolley, some of his alleged victims are angry and say he's been allowed to slip through the cracks of the system.A reporter with the Whidbey News-Times investigated Edith Couture's lawsuit against Jolley in 1999. Couture, who was seeing Jolley for marital counseling, claimed he touched her inappropriately during a counseling session. After the reporter contacted him, Jolley complained to the former editor of newspaper and the editor stopped the story.At that time, Jolley alerted the newspaper to another local mental health therapist, Steve Talmadge, who was being sued for allegedly having an inappropriate sexual relationship with a patient. Rebecca Wilson, now an Everett resident, said she thought that the Department of Health would revoke Jolley's certification after she and two other women filed complaints against him in 1994.I guess I was naive to think they would yank his license, she said.Wilson said she saw Jolley for counseling a dozen times but quit after he called her late one night, asked what she was wearing and offered to bring a six-pack of beer to her home. She refused, but he called a half dozen times again.He asked me, 'When am I going to see you again?' I gave him the rude brush-off,' she said. He's definitely a sick-o.One of the other women who filed a complaint against Jolley said that he knelt beside her in a counseling session, tried to pull her on top of him and kissed her. She resisted. The third woman claimed he shared a bottle of wine with her and hugged her in a way she found sexual during a counseling session, according to the Department of Health's stipulation to informal disposition of the three complaints. In Oct. 1995, Jolley conceded that the Department of Health was prepared to prove the allegation and agreed to a year-long period of correction action as a result. The department ordered that Jolley be supervised by a licensed mental health professional, complete 30 classroom hours of education on ethics and boundaries, and submit to a mental health evaluation.Three years later, Couture says Jolley ruined her life. After she stepped forward with her allegations against him, Couture said she lost her job, her home and her reputation. She has lost contact and support from many friends and former co-workers.I now keep to myself and have no life outside of my part-time nursing position, she said. "

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